Festival Follow Up Report V-Day | Until The Violence Stops www.vday.org Startup Support Provided By Lead Corporate Support By SUCCESSES AND HIGHLIGHTS: UNTIL THE VIOLENCE STOPS: NYC, which took place June 12-27, successfully took over the five boroughs of the city, inviting New Yorkers to stand up and join V-Day in making New York City the safest place on earth for women and girls. With startup support from The Rockefeller Foundation and lead corporate support from Verizon, sponsors included Avon Foundation, Bloomberg, CBS Outdoor, Suca by Susan Cappa and The Lakshmi Foundation. During a two-week festival of theater, spoken word, performance and community events, UNTIL THE VIOLENCE STOPS: NYC: • Raised $1.1 million dollars • Sold out 4 events reaching 4,250 people • Welcomed 2,000 runners in Prospect Park running to demand an end to violence • Witnessed 50 actresses and over 100 writers contributing their genius, time and talent • Joined 70 community events in all five boroughs reaching 1,000’s of people • Held 1 press conference with Mayor Michael Bloomberg • Placed 2,000 messaging posters on buses and subways in all five boroughs • Made millions of media impressions from editorial coverage in outlets including: The New York Times, The Associated Press, The Amsterdam News, Time Out NY, Metro, New York Daily News, Access Hollywood, Al Jazeera, Good Day New York, Queens Times, The Brooklyn Eagle, Womens Enews, and many more • Reached over 8 million people who heard and saw the message that ending violence against women and girls is possible UPDATES AND RESULTS: “(82%) of festival attendees reported that attending the event made them want to take action to reduce violence against women and girls.” This amazing statistic comes from the independent evaluation by MATRIX Public Health Consultants, Inc., that was generously commissioned by The Rockefeller Foundation. Highlights from their findings follow. Like the V-Day model established with The Vagina Monologues, UNTIL THE VIOLENCE STOPS was designed to be replicated. In the summer of 2007, V-Day’s Until The Violence Stops Festival will be presented by V-Day organizers in Ohio and Kentucky, bringing together women’s groups in those states to stand strong and demand an end to violence in their communities. The events will highlight local talent and anti-violence organizations. V-Day’s campaign directors are providing guidance and support. Paris, Denver, and Providence, Rhode Island are among the cities planning festivals in Summer 2008! Also in June 2007, Villard will release the anthology A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant, and A Prayer. Proceeds from its sale will benefit V-Day. From the Villard catalogue: When her stage play The Vagina Monologues became an international sensation (“probably the most important piece of political theater of the last decade” The New York Times), Eve Ensler emerged as a powerful voice and champion for women everywhere. The Vagina Monologues was Phase One of her international V-Day project; with Until the Violence Stops, she unveils Phase Two. This impressive, illuminating, inspired collection of pieces from Ensler’s sold out internationally bound “Until the Violence Stops” festival of theater, spoken word, and community events brings the issue of violence against women and girls to the forefront of our consciousness. From Edward Albee on S&M to Edwidge Danticat on a border crossing to Nicholas Kristof on the limitations of being a journalist to Carol Gilligan on a daughter watching a mother get hit to Sharon Olds on a bra, these sad, funny, heartening, tragic, brilliant, and scary writings offer a true and profound portrait of how violence against women and girls affects us all. In conjunction with the book release, local V-Day organizers will stage readings of A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant, and A Prayer, as originally performed during UNTIL THE VIOLENCE STOPS: NYC. The essays make for a powerful evening of theater and action. Tentative cities: Chicago; Los Angeles; San Francisco; Miami; New York City; Denver; Boston; Toronto; Houston; Hartford. A benefit performance of Necessary Targets will take place in Beirut and London. The Beirut event will feature Jane Fonda and will be held at the First Beirut Conference On Women that V-Day is sponsoring with the Arab League and Al Hasnaa magazine. In a wonderful statement about ending violence, the winner of Run Until The Violence Stops was gun survivor and official “Millionth Face” in Amnesty International’s Control Arms Campaign Julius Arile Lomerinyang from Kenya. Julius won the 5K race in just over 16 minutes! Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer issued a Proclamation to V-Day Founder/Artistic Director Eve Ensler, commending her for her tireless efforts to end violence against women and girls and for bringing V-Day’s mission straight to the streets of Manhattan with UNTIL THE VIOLENCE STOPS: NYC. FESTIVAL FINDINGS: An independent evaluation by MATRIX Public Health Consultants, Inc. was commissioned by The Rockefeller Foundation. Following is a summary of their findings: UNTIL THE VIOLENCE STOPS: NYC General Impact • 1.1 million dollars was raised to support local organizations in the fight to end violence towards women and girls. • V-Day marquee events were highly successful in increasing the public’s knowledge and awareness of the impact of violence against women and girls and of how they might contribute to the fight to end it through personal action. • While 38% of informants assumed violence against women and girls is a “given”, the vast majority of community event attendees (82%) reported that attending the event made them want to take action to reduce violence against women and girls. • The festival content and materials were thoughtful, provocative, and covered major components of the issues surrounding violence against women and girls, including: 1) root causes 2) manifestations; 3) consequences; and 4) potential solutions. The main performances of the festival were delivered by high-caliber artists, writers and performers reflecting racial and ethnic diversity. Furthermore, in raising awareness about potential action steps to end the violence, the festival has served as a catalyst to mobilize individuals to take (further) action. • Previous work in advertising suggests that the materials generated for the festival with strategic placement on buses, subway stations and in subway cars in NYC made possible approximately 2 million impressions. • The ad campaign was visually appealing and primarily informative about the festival • In addition to the ad campaign and website coverage, it is estimated that millions of media impressions were made via print media coverage of the festival. Sources with information/articles about V-Day include The New York Times, Democracy Now, Time Out New York, The Nation, Pucker Up, NYCLU, The Amsterdam News, The Brooklyn Eagle, Women’s Enews, Access Hollywood, New York Daily News, Metro, Al Jazeera, Good Day New York, Queens Times, and RenewAmerica. The content published by these sources ranged from purely informational, to transcripts of recorded interviews, to op-ed articles for the campaign. Independent media served as V-Day’s major media outlet. • Estimates of the reach of UNTIL THE VIOLENCE STOPS: NYC are broad and may be based on the composite of various sources including the ad campaign, festival activities and newsprint impressions and suggest that over 8 million people may have heard something/learned something about ending violence towards women and girls. This estimate is approximate and is based on: • Potentially 2 million ad campaign impressions (potentially 2 million individuals) • Potentially 6 million print media impressions (including newspaper and websites) • 4,000 marquee event participants • 2,000 runners • 2,900 V-Day survey participants (pre-and post street intercept surveys and community event surveys) • Performer feedback was overwhelmingly positive in terms of planning and support. • Estimates of the reach of the ad campaign on the NYC population was 28% (based on random sampling of the general population using street intercept surveys post-UNTIL THE VIOLENCE STOPS: NYC) suggesting that the ad campaign was successful in reaching approximately one- third of the general population in its current format. UNTIL THE VIOLENCE STOPS: NYC Impact on Attendees • A select sample of approximately 4,000 individuals received intensive messages about violence against women and girls including statistics, root causes, consequences, solutions and action steps through their participation in the marquee events. Of the 1,000 that completed surveys, 60% reported that they had learned something new, and 81% reported that they are willing to take or have taken action in the form of raising awareness, assisting victims, volunteering, donating funds and/or political action. • The audience was very receptive, interactive and engaged with the presenters. It was multigenerational and included former batterers, victims, activists, and intervention groups • Violence against women had personally impacted the majority of their lives (72%) and one third of them think about it often. One-half of informants (49%) reported that violence against women and girls affects their daily activities and choices. UNTIL THE VIOLENCE STOPS: NYC Impact on Community-Based Organizations (CBO) • A large number of the community venues had high levels of audience participation and included presentations by survivors of violence and activists against violence. • Diverse themes were covered at the community events and addressed youth, elderly, family, relationships, friendships, domestic violence, and court processes. • The majority of the audience at the community events reported they learned something new by attending the event (75%). • There was overwhelming positive feedback from the CBOs about the expansiveness of the outdoor media campaign produced by V-Day. • The CBOs used the online calendar of events and agreed that it increased attendance at their events • All CBO key informants reported above-average attendance at their community events and more diverse attendees than normal in terms of gender, age, and ethnicity.